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Abstract Shift work involves work hours that most people consider unconventional and demanding (e.g., working during the night or starting work very early in the morning) so shift-work can have many physical, psychological, and social effects on the worker. The problems occur from working in opposition to the body‘s normal circadian sleep-wake schedule. Along with physical health problems, shift-work may lead to poorer health habits such as increased consumption of tobacco and reduced physical activity. Tobacco use and reduced activity are often linked with depression. The working in a combination of day and night shifts affected workers by causing fatigue, sleepiness, lethargy, insomnia, digestive problems, depression and anxiety. Aim of the Work: This study aimed to assess the effect of shiftwork on physical and psychological health of nursing staff. Subjects and methods: Research design: Descriptive design was conducted for this study. Setting: The present study was conducted at Ain Shams Specialized Hospital affiliated to Ain Shams University Hospitals Sample size and characteristics The sample composed of 100 nursing staff under the criteria of: Sex : Female nurses. Age : 30-50 years old. Experience : having at least one year experience and engaged in shiftwork. The actual field work was carried out from December (2014) up to February (2015). The researcher was available in the study setting two days per week (Wednesday & Thursday) divided as follows: during first period (8.00 am to 2.00 pm) to meet morning shift nurses and during the second period to meet afternoon shift nurses (2 pm to 8.00) and after 8.00 pm to meet night shift nurses, the interviewing took 15-20 minutes for each female nurse. Tool of data collection: Data were collected using the following tool: Interview questionnaire sheet, it was written in simple Arabic language and it consisted of three parts: o Part I: Nursing staff sociodemographic data including age, years of experience, social status and residence. o Part II: Data collection about description the procedures of designing the shift work. Part III: Assessment of the effect of shiftwork on the physical, psychological and cognitive health of nurses selected. It was developed by the researcher. The findings of the present study could be summarized as follows: Showed that the mean score and standard deviation for nursing staff experience were 17.2 ± 5.95, the majority of nursing staff who were engaged in shiftwork were married. Also, it was found that the highest percentage of nursing staff had afternoon shift, while the lowest percentage of them were night shift. Half of the nursing staff suffer from insomnia mostly and sometimes had a night without sleep. There is no relation between psychological stress and sociodemographic data of nursing staff. There is no statistically significant difference between physical stress of the study sample and the mean score of their sociodemographic data represented in age, experience and number of children. In the light of the study findings, it is concluded that there is no statistical significant difference between physical stress of the study sample and the mean score of their sociodemographic data that represented in age, experience and numbers of children.Slightly more than half of the nursing staff mostly resists falling asleep during the shift and one third of them was sometimeshad job strain. The majority of nursing staff of technical institute affected by physical stress, also all the nursing staff who had current night shift affected by physical stress. In relation to nurses’ psychological stress of shift work and their sociodemographic data were no statistically significant while in relation to procedures used in designing shift work there was one third of nursing staff who are night shift mostly affected by psychological stress. The following recommendations inferred from the study: Nursing organization should be fixing the roster for the nursing staff to improve quality and quantity of their sleep and also to avoid the work related mistakes. Counseling unit should be exist in the hospitals to explain for the nursing staff how to cope with work shift physical and psychological stress. Health education to the nursing staff about sleep hygiene measures which help them to avoid sleep disorders and obtain a high sleep quality Also it is recommended that more studies are conducted to analyze the sleep patterns and disturbances among nursing staff to determine the causes of their sleep problems. Also it recommended to take into account the cultural differences between the countries when design the shift work schedule. |